Tolerance
by BirdG
Summary: Ron, Hermione and Harry cope with Rose and Al's Sorting.


**Author's Notes:** Companion piece to _More Than Our Abilities_ but stands on its own.

* * *

_August 25th, 2017_

"No, no." Ron shook his head, certain his brothers were having him on. "I don't believe it."

Instead of smiling or cracking a joke, George looked perfectly sober. Beside him, Percy nodded. "I was there, I heard it."

"Even Malfoy isn't cracked enough to name his kid that. It's an insect!" Percy opened his mouth to interject but Ron didn't let him. "I know, I know! It's a constellation and they're all named after stars. I took Astronomy too, Perce. It's still a bleeding bug."

"I was going to say that scorpions aren't insects they're arachnids; like spiders."

"That's worse," Ron whispered, a look of horror on his face. "Blimey. Scorpius Malfoy."

Snorting at his brother's pained look, George mused, "Maybe he has a sister named Spiderina."

"I think something like Arachne would fit better, it's from Greek myth like the rest of their names," Percy said, still showing a remarkable ability to over-think a joke.

"How'd you lot know it was Malfoy's kid? Was Malfoy with him?" Somehow, Ron doubted that since that would have been the lead-in and not the Malfoy spawn's incredibly unfortunate name.

"Spitting image of Malfoy," George said after drinking a bit of his ale. "Like looking into a Pensieve. And no, the kid came in alone. Wearing robes that probably cost more than everything in my closet."

"Figures."

"Looks about Al's age," Percy added. "Probably starting Hogwarts this year."

"That's doesn't mean anything." Despite what he'd said, Ron knew right down to the knot in stomach that Percy was right. He expected that when he went into work on Monday morning there'd be a file on his desk detailing Malfoy's activities for the last 13 years, as they did whenever Malfoy returned from his visits abroad.

An awkward silence settled over the three till Percy spoke. "They probably won't even know each other. They might have classes together or run into each other in the halls but it won't be the same."

"And it's not like they'll be stuck in the same house with Malfoy's kid."

"Yeah," Ron mumbled. "Yeah, you're right."

That wouldn't stop him from making certain Rosie had the best robes and a new broom when she left for school.

* * *

_September 1st, 2017_

A tapping sound at the window caused Hermione to look up from the files she'd been studying; her heart lept when she saw it was Rosie's owl, Athena.

"Ron! Ron, Rosie's letter is here!" she called as she untied the scroll from the owl's leg. It took a few tries for Hermione to unravel the letter; her daughter seemed to delight in wrapping her scrolls till they were as thin as a quill. Both hands grasping the parchment so it wouldn't curl in on itself again, Hermione read quickly. She felt a dull sense of guilt for not waiting for Ron but he'd understand.

Her first hint that sorting didn't go as expected was when Rosie hadn't begun the letter with that piece of information. Instead, her daughter launched into a description of Hogwarts itself mentioning the castle, the grounds, the students – everything but her sorting. She saved that for the end.

I should tell you now, since you'll surely find out from Uncle Harry and Aunt Ginny. On the train, I promised Al I would be sorted in the same House as him and I was. I'm in Slytherin. It's quite nice, really. Cold though, I wish I had packed more jumpers.

I made a few friends like Regina Fitzroy, she's in Slytherin too. She's a Muggle-born and I told her all about the House-elves! That boy that Dad pointed out on the Platform, Scorpius Malfoy? He's in Slytherin also. He seems all right though I must say I was expecting someone very smart after Dad told me to beat him in every test. I don't think Scorpius is that smart though he does read a lot.

"What is it?" Ron entered the room, carrying a load of laundry in a hamper that was promptly dropped on the ground once he spotted the parchment. "Is that Rosie's letter?"

She responded by clutching the note to her chest. "Perhaps you should sit down."

"What? What is it? Is something wrong?"

"It's nothing serious but I think it would better--"

"If it's nothing serious then why won't you just tell me what it is."

Hermione sighed, still torn between telling him outright and trying to break it to him gently. Luckily for her, she was saved that. Something in her face must have given away the truth.

"She didn't get sorted into Gryffindor?" he guessed. "Well... well that's... well, Ravenclaw is a bloody good house too and we always knew she had your brains so it's no great shock, that."

"She didn't get sorted into Ravenclaw, Ron."

"Hufflepuff?" It was more a plea than a question. "Please tell me it was Hufflepuff."

Hermione held out the letter to him, Ron snatching it from her hand instantly. "No, no, no. This has got to be a joke. This is a joke!"

"It's not a joke."

He didn't hear her. "James and Freddy, they put her up to it, I'm sure. It's a joke. It has to be."

"Ron..."

"How can she be in Slytherin? And Al too?" He waved the parchment for emphasis. "I ask you, does that make any sense?"

"Slytherin's not a bad house--"

He snorted. "I have a stack of case files in my office that say otherwise."

"It's no longer the pure-blood enclave it was in the past it's much more diluted now," she argued. "There have been entire years when all the students in Slytherin were Muggle-borns."

"Those were the years when only two kids were sorted to that House!"

"There are Muggle-born Slytherins in her year as well, Rosie mentions one of them in the letter." Realizing who else her daughter had mentioned, Hermione reached for the letter. "You know, never mind that. Why don't I just take the letter and we can open up a bottle of wine--"

Ron waved her off, turning away from her as he protectively clutched the letter in his hands while he read. After what seemed like ages but was barely a minute, he turned to her and handed the letter back. "Best make that a bottle of Firewhiskey."

* * *

September 10th, 2017

_And the Tornadoes beat the Cannons, 205-80, making this another brutal defeat for the Chudley--_

Harry barely had time to move out of the way before Ron lunged for the dial, turning the radio off.

"I don't know why I bother," Ron mumbled gloomily.

"They can't lose them all," Harry told them. "Try, though as they might."

"Ha, ha. You're a right laugh, you know that?" Ron said, rolling his eyes. "Did I tell you Rosie's trying out for Seeker?"

"No, though I reckoned she might. She asked Ginny to practice with her over the summer." Harry took a drink of his coffee, frowning when he realized it had gone cold. "Al intends to try out as well. Be nice if one of them made it."

"It would, yeah." From the expression on his face, Harry guessed Ron had run into the same problem with this he had: if Rose or Al made the Quidditch team, they'd be cheering for Slytherin. Of course, they'd be there to support their children but they'd also have to support Slytherin. There was the rub.

(This didn't even touch on the nightmare scenario of Al and James facing-off in a Quidditch match. Hogwarts may have survived war but he doubted it could survive that.)

"Hermione keeps telling me about all these Slytherins who went on to, y'know, not be gits. She wants me to know there's more to the house than Death Eaters."

"Same. Apparently St. Mungo's was founded by a Slytherin."

"I heard." Ron picked up Harry's paperweight – a pewter Hungarian Horntail the kids had given him several Christmases ago – and started passing it through his hands. "I have to admit, mate, I'm happy she's been so busy with work and the house-elf research because if she had any spare time on her hands she'd try to rehabilitate Slytherin's image."

Harry didn't doubt that in the least, it sounded like the kind of fruitless uphill struggle that Hermione enjoyed.

"I don't know how she can take this so well."

"Maybe we're overreacting." He had been forced to that conclusion after last night's nightmare of a sneering Scorpius Malfoy who was nothing more than his father's doppelganger, standing between Rose and Al. But Rose and Al hadn't been themselves. His confident, bright niece had been dressed in frilly pink robes and clung to Scorpius' arm all the while simpering at him. Al, on the other side of Scorpius, had ballooned to the size of a small gorilla who did nothing but grunt and pound his fist into his palm menacingly.

When he had told Ginny about this, she had given the same pitying-but-really-amused smile she used on the dog when it barked at its own reflection in their floor-length mirror.

"Yeah, maybe. Hermione keeps saying things are different, that Slytherin's more 'diluted' and I reckon she's right about that."

"She is." Harry nodded, mentally going through the list of names of former classmates. "It's not as if many of the Slytherins in our year had kids." The realization _why_ - that almost half that class had been dead for over a decade - hitting him like a Bludger.

"The Death Eater families are all gone." Rotting in the ground or rotting in Azkaban. "Well, except for one."

There it was, the crux of the issue. It's not so much that the Malfoys _weren't_ gone it's that they were here. Not just in _their_ lives but in their children's lives. Harry wanted to be proven wrong but he couldn't escape the fear that Al and Rose were in for a disappointment. A fallout was inevitable, a matter of when not if. Given the history between their families, between their parents - given who Scorpius' father was - he couldn't imagine how it could be otherwise.

From the looks of it, Ron had come to similar conclusions. Setting the paperweight down, he sank back into his chair. "It'd be different if they weren't friends with Malfoy's kid. Maybe it shouldn't be..."

"But it is."


End file.
